Here's a question Brian posted (from Kari). As another blogging dancer, I thought I'd add my two cents in here.

"If you were at a dance event, would you rather have awesome dances the entire time, dancing with experienced leads or follows that you didn't know? Or, would you rather have some pretty good dances while dancing the entire time with your friends?"

What I'd like to point out is that I don't divide the world up into these two categories at all. In my experience, any dance that has ever fallen under the heading of "awesome" has been with a friend. I think that, no matter how good a dancer is, if I don't have some sort of personal connection with them then there's just something missing (though the dance may still be quite good). Something I learned in my first or second social dance class ever was that technical ability is only the second best predictor of how much I enjoy dancing with someone. How comfortable I am with the person is the most important part, because I can relax more and have more fun. I'm lucky in that many of my friends are also excellent dancers, so I guess I don't feel like I have to choose between the two much, though I realize there are also lots of good dancers out there who I don't dance with because I don't really know them. I worry a bit sometimes about turning into a "dance snob," as Richard would put it, so I do try to dance some with people I don't know, though it's difficult sometimes, being shy and whatnot. I will almost always dance with any stranger who asks me (though Latin dances and tangos are iffy). And I actually enjoy dancing with beginners and helping them out, so I try to make a point of dancing with a newbie periodically -- which, if I don't know the person, wouldn't fall into either of the categories mentioned in the question. So anyway, if I had to arrange my ideal dance event, I would have the majority of dances be with my friends, a few dances teaching/helping beginners, and a few dances with completely random people I don't know but who might become friends, whether or not they're good dancers. And that's roughly what I do most of the time, though I should work more on the dancing-with-strangers bit.

I went to the first two-step class tonight. I've missed taking dance classes, so it was nice to go do that. I think it will be a very good class for me, too. I've already learned several new things, and it will probably go a long way towards getting me to enjoy two-step more. It's not a difficult dance, but something about it never quite clicked for me. I'm hoping that after five classes of it I'll be happier with it. Plus, it will be a good thing to get me out and being more social and meeting more people. That's something that I often let slip a bit too much. It was a bit sad, though, coming back from dancing and realizing I hadn't done a single waltz. Sigh. But I'll get a good fix of that tomorrow at FNW.

The library is still being slow so I called my temp agency today to ask them if they could find me a few little things to keep me busy next week. The time off has been fun, but making a bit of money is good to do once in a while. I'm still hoping the library thing will work out, though.

I've been watching a bit of the stuff on the news about SARS. There had better not be anyone breathing that stuff around at the San Jose airport next weekend. I'm still excited about visiting Lacey, though!

¡Felíz Cumpleaños Quenita! If anyone's interested in hearing the tune I wrote for this occasion three years ago, you can download this mp3 (1.5 MB): The Third of April.

We just had our first official house meeting, at least since I've lived here. It was interesting partly just because we so rarely have all of us together at the same time. We should have gotten a photograph. There's only five of us right now, of course, since we still haven't gotten someone new for Niels' room. Anyway, we were mostly talking about what to do with the common areas to make them more usable. Don't scoff -- the general consensus is that it might not be entirely hopeless. Mostly we need to set up some sort of electronics workshop for Daniel, since he's got the dining room taken over (did anyone even know we had a dining room? no, because you can't tell) and then that sort of overflows into other areas of the house. Then Cheryl and Sarah are going to be in charge of reorganizing the kitchen and even making some of it look nice. Micheal and I will provide slave labor as needed in the various endeavors. We've got some good plans, so we'll see how it all works out. It will probably be a pretty gradual process, though.

Apparently the library director has more pressing things to be doing right now than letting us know if I can work there or not. Grr. Right now I'm just trying to make good use of all my time off, but tomorrow when I go in for my usual evening time I'll probably let them know that I need to start making money again by next week. So if nothing is happening with them, I'll need to go back to my temp agencies.

Happy Apple Fruits Day!